Johann Jacob Baier (14 June 1677– 14 July 1735) was a German physician and naturalist who wrote on the geology and fossils of the

Nuremberg Nuremberg ( ; german: link=no, Nürnberg ; in the local East Franconian dialect: ''Nämberch'' ) is the second-largest city of the German state of Bavaria after its capital Munich, and its 518,370 (2019) inhabitants make it the 14th-largest ...

area in his book ''Oryctographia Norica''. He considered the Deluge of the Bible to be the only catastrophe to have occurred in earth history. Frontispiece_baier

Baier was born in

Jena Jena () is a German city and the second largest city in Thuringia. Together with the nearby cities of Erfurt and Weimar, it forms the central metropolitan area of Thuringia with approximately 500,000 inhabitants, while the city itself has a popu ...

, the son of theologian

Johann Wilhelm Baier Johann Wilhelm Baier (11 November 1647 – 19 October 1695) was a German theologian in the Lutheran scholastic tradition. He was born at Nuremberg, and died at Weimar. He studied philology, especially Oriental, and philosophy at Altdorf from 1 ...

and Anna Katharine Musaeus. He was educated at Jena then received a degree in medicine from

Halle Halle may refer to: Places Germany * Halle (Saale), also called Halle an der Saale, a city in Saxony-Anhalt ** Halle (region), a former administrative region in Saxony-Anhalt ** Bezirk Halle, a former administrative division of East Germany ** Hall ...

after which he became a professor at

Altdorf, Switzerland Altdorf (sometimes written as ''Altdorf UR'' in order to distinguish it from the other "Altdorfs"; German for "old village") is a historic town and municipality in Switzerland. It is the capital of the Swiss canton of Uri. The municipality cover ...

from 1704. He became a personal physician to the Emperor in 1731. Baier was elected to the

Leopoldina Academy The German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina (german: Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher Leopoldina – Nationale Akademie der Wissenschaften), short Leopoldina, is the national academy of Germany, and is located in Halle (Saale). Founded ...

over which he presided from 1731. Apart from his collections of fossils, he also collected portraits of learned people, with a collection of nearly 600 of them. Baier also published a biographical account of the medical faculty at Altdorf. His son Ferdinand Jacob Baier (1707-1788) was also a physician and naturalist. His specimens are distributed in collections. A specimen of the ammonite ''Phylloceras heterophyllum'' was purchased by the Jena museum in 1728.

References

External links

Oryktographia norica (1708)

Sciagraphia Musei Sui (1730)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Baier, Johann Jacob German paleontologists German naturalists 1677 births 1735 deaths Physicians from Jena Scientists from Jena